tar
Ranked 4 of 14 compression tools by recommenders
Free archiver standard on nearly every Unix-like system, reliable for copying and backing up files. Main caveat: options and behaviour differ between GNU, BSD and macOS versions.
Free archiver standard on nearly every Unix-like system, reliable for copying and backing up files. Main caveat: options and behaviour differ between GNU, BSD and macOS versions.
32 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 13
- approval share
- 59%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Standard and present on nearly every system
“Uncompressed .tar is a reasonable choice for this application because the tools to read/write tar files are very standard”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly” “there is always tar(1) even in the most basic of distributions”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Shrinking While Linking” “this has been fine working since the 80s”
Comment from 12 Jul 2026 in “Croc: Securely transfer files and folders between two computers” Simple and reliable for backups
“I do this all the time with tar by itself and it's wire-proof enough to work fine”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Shittp – Volatile Dotfiles over SSH” “This is a beautifully simple approach.”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “Tar: A slop-free alternative to rsync” “tar is great, and well kown”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Tar: A slop-free alternative to rsync” - Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “Why We Built Our Own Background Agent”
Fast for bulk file transfers
“I've achieved significant speeds ups by tarring the directory first”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “4x faster network file sync with rclone (vs rsync) (2025)” “for initial migrations I often find myself simply using tar instead”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “Migrating a Synology NAS to a UniFi UNAS Pro 8 with Robocopy, SMB Multichannel” “One of my "goto" tools is copying files over a "tar pipe".”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “4x faster network file sync with rclone (vs rsync) (2025)” Handles sparse files and incremental deltas
“Note that tar and rsync can handle sparse files, but scp doesn't.”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “4x faster network file sync with rclone (vs rsync) (2025)” “tar can compute deltas using only the small `.snar` file”
Comment from 17 Sep 2026 in “Backups Aren't Simple” “tar can handle sparse files, whereas scp doesn't”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “4x faster network file sync with rclone (vs rsync) (2025)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Options and utilities inconsistent across versions
“its terribly ancient utilities and gratuitous incompatibility with modern Linux utilities”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “Tar files made in macOS generate "xattr" errors when expanded in Linux” “If you use some UNIX tar, you will understand why everybody hates it.”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools” “tar: unknown option -- - usage: tar {crtux}”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools” Poor random access to files
“unlike TAR, allowing direct random to the files without "extracting" them or seeking through the entire file”
Comment from 25 Jan 2026 in “I built a 2x faster lexer, then discovered I/O was the real bottleneck” “tar has no centralised directory. The only way to get file 100 is to walk trough the 99 files before”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Shrinking While Linking” “Compressed TAR is not great for random access”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Illinois Just Passed a Law That Puts Linux on the Hook for Age Verification” Lacks modern filesystem metadata
“The traditional tar file format cannot store a lot of the metadata that is contained in modern file systems”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “Tar files made in macOS generate "xattr" errors when expanded in Linux” “tar doesn't preserve creation/birth times and keeping that original metadata is important to some people”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “Migrating a Synology NAS to a UniFi UNAS Pro 8 with Robocopy, SMB Multichannel” Compressed archives must be extracted first
“Compressed TAR is not great for random access”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Illinois Just Passed a Law That Puts Linux on the Hook for Age Verification” “A tarfule you have to uncompress first.”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly”
Other compression tools people recommend
The four most recommended other compression tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zstandard (zstd) | 111 | 14 | 89% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Brotli | 24 | 18 | 57% | 7 | — | — |
| gzip | 23 | 13 | 64% | 8 | — | — |
| tarThis page | 19 | 13 | 59% | 11 | — | — |
| NNCP | 15 | 0 | 100% | 11 | — | Approved |
What people said
All 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“My solution is to use gnu tar everywhere.”
“tar can compute deltas using only the small `.snar` file”
“tar doesn't preserve creation/birth times and keeping that original metadata is important to some people”
“for initial migrations I often find myself simply using tar instead”
“Compressed TAR is not great for random access”
“this has been fine working since the 80s”
“Frankly I still check man pages for things like tar all the time and I’ve been using linux for over a decade.”
“now instead of chasing arguments for a single command you get to chase arguments for tar, ssh, and whatever else”
“This is a beautifully simple approach.”
“I've largely standardised towards using the bsd variant everywhere”
“zstd (often through `tar`)”
“The traditional tar file format cannot store a lot of the metadata that is contained in modern file systems”
“its terribly ancient utilities and gratuitous incompatibility with modern Linux utilities”
“Cant be bothered to memorize the differences between macOS tar and unix tar, especially when the latter is considered to be the de facto standard”
“Uncompressed .tar is a reasonable choice for this application because the tools to read/write tar files are very standard”
“A tarfule you have to uncompress first.”
“tar is great, and well kown”
“Note that tar and rsync can handle sparse files, but scp doesn't.”
“tar can handle sparse files, whereas scp doesn't”
“One of my "goto" tools is copying files over a "tar pipe".”
“I've achieved significant speeds ups by tarring the directory first”
“it has age and ubiquity, and that's about it at this point”
“unlike TAR, allowing direct random to the files without "extracting" them or seeking through the entire file”
“"Do one thing and do it well" philosophy”
“If you need backups, tar.”
“I do this all the time with tar by itself and it's wire-proof enough to work fine”
“GNU tar was never the issue. It's almost completely straight forward”
“If you use some UNIX tar, you will understand why everybody hates it.”
“tar: unknown option -- - usage: tar {crtux}”
“tar.exe, however, beats both of those in terms of archive format support and speed.”
“tar has no centralised directory. The only way to get file 100 is to walk trough the 99 files before”
“there is always tar(1) even in the most basic of distributions”
“tar/pax are kind of terrible formats.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.